September orienteering
Posted on 30 Sep, 2010 by Lynne Walker | Filed under Blog • Orienteering
There was an opportunity to go orienteering every weekend and we took the lot!
Deeside
First off was the 11 & 8 person relay at Crathes on Deeside. EckO had a team in each; no prizes this year but lots of fun for all. Crathes is a deceptively complicated wood, especially close to the change-over area. The younger EckO members could not take part in the relay (the easiest course is an orange) so they spent their time climbing – and falling out of – the surrounding trees. Most people spent the night at the campsite near Aboyne; although we had not booked they let us have the van on the EckO encampment and we spent night three in it. SOL 5 was the following day at Birsemore. My memory of this was that it is a forest of many parts. It was but this time we were not taken down the steep, boulder, deep heather slope. I was reasonably pleased with my result. After this it was tea shop hunting. The one in Aboyne was very busy (as we had parked in Aboyne and been bussed from there this was not surprising) so we drove over the Cairn o Mount road and spotted one by the archway in Fettercairn. It was really nice and we will return again.
Park World Tour
The following weekend was the Park World Tour events in Perth. Paul was heavily involved with doing the website and helping with the computing side at the event. On the Friday I helped at the start for the school races (explaining to the pairs or threes what they had to do in 60 seconds!), the invited elite athlete races (finger on their map until the bleep went) and then the open public races. I did have the chance to go round the course myself and had one of my senior moments when I missed a control. At the finish ‘I am sure I went there’ and checking the GPS track later to ‘No I did not go there’. 
Saturday saw me back out at Scone Palace running the start single-handed for more public races; then back into Perth centre to watch the PWT elite race. My mistake of the previous day felt a little better when three of the elite women missed a control in this race! I was able to have a run but Paul was too involved in the computing to go out. 
On the Sunday we went to the event at Devilla and my recollection of this was a long walk to the start (about 3km) and the same back from the finish with a physically tough course in-between. We stayed at the Kinross Travelodge for the weekend and unfortunately had the rear bumper of the Caddy ‘scrapped’ by a vehicle in the car park. It is cosmetic damage but annoying that someone was so careless and did not even leave a note of apology.
Club Champs 2010
Next up was the club champs, organised by June & Dave Bleazard on the Battleship Hill / Dunollie map. It was a wet day but well supported by both junior and adults. I had worked out the handicap based on the time per kilometre from the EckO spring events. I was reasonably pleased with my run and came third on handicap and forth overall (out of nineteen entrants). The social and food was at the Bleazard house; Andrea had again made a fabulous cake – she has a job for life!
Fife weekend
The last weekend in September was again a ‘double-header’ with two events to go to. First up was a street race at St. Andrews. The weather was bright, cool and blustery. The courses were quite long and had you thinking all the time. I really enjoyed the challenge and was relatively pleased with my run. On the Sunday it was SOL 6 at Tentsmuir. This is a fast area of forested sand dunes with a grid system of tracks between the forest blocks. My run went well until number 9 when I was just sloppy with my navigation and did not hit the control in a greenish area. It was a bit annoying but I only have myself to blame. The tea shop at the garden centre near Perth helped to make up for this error!
I am a level 4 orienteering coach and a qualified Assessor & Coach Educator. I have been orienteering for xx years and have coached on many foreign tours.